


Bluebeard's Wives

by velcroboyfriends



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Attempted Kidnapping, Blood and Injury, Light BDSM, Minor Character Death, Multi, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Episode: s02e13 Mizumono, Stitches, Sub Hannibal, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-11
Updated: 2016-07-11
Packaged: 2018-07-19 21:59:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7378945
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/velcroboyfriends/pseuds/velcroboyfriends
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"If I am to be Bluebeard's wife," she says in some other future of some other world, "I would have preferred to be the last." But that is in another time and place, and in this one, things aren't nearly so linear as that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bluebeard's Wives

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GreenPhoenix](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenPhoenix/gifts).



"If I am to be Bluebeard's wife," she says in some other future of some other world, "I would have preferred to be the last." But that is in another time and place, and in this one, things aren't nearly so linear as that.

\---

There are three plane tickets: one for Hannibal, one for Will, and one for Abigail. Abigail is hardly in a state to claim hers, as much as it pains Hannibal's heart. But Will can be stitched back together enough to fly. Will can be drugged enough not to know the difference. And there was always a fourth option.

\---

She reclines in the plane seat like a Titian, flute of champagne grasped languidly between fingers that can only coordinate the most basic actions. The light through the window makes her pale hair shimmer in its glow. And on Hannibal's other side, dark curls press into his shoulder where his companion lies asleep. He will smile at the attendant and remark jovially on his dear boy's ability to sleep on planes. The low pressure, he will say, knocks him right out - _klok_ (at which he will give Will's forehead a loving tap). Just like that, out cold, every time, his boy. The attendant will giggle just a little, and he will smile smoothly and ask for another champagne.

\---

Will is deposited at their lovely home, given another dose to keep him out. Bedelia feigns illness well enough to get them into a _pronto soccorso_ , as they say. They go out the back after Hannibal steals some supplies. The curved needle shines like a sliver of moonlight as Hannibal glides it through Will's lovely pale flesh, stitch after careful stitch forming a dark red slash of a crescent along his belly. A blood moon. Hannibal revels in the warm, wet feeling of the wound against his fingers, presses into it as much as he can without worsening its condition. He laps a drop of blood from his forefinger, presses the same finger to Bedelia's lips. _Your blood, given for me._

\---

Will's pupils are wide when he wakes. He stares directly into Hannibal's eyes. Hannibal remembers a time when the man could hardly meet his gaze, and now his world narrows down to those two irises latched onto him. Perhaps, he thinks, the time Will spends in his head fishing on the lake accounts for the blue of them, the color seeping through. Hannibal can hear the lapping of water from Bedelia's bath. He touches his hand to Will's stubble-rough cheek, expecting the sting of rebuff. To his surprise, Will's face angles softly in toward his palm. 

\---

"I want to hate you for what you did to Abigail."

"And why do you not?"

There is a long pause.

"A different god chose to visit me."

"Which god is that?"

"You tell me."

\---

The pink of Bedelia's cheeks, blown raw by the wind. The dark of Will's eye sockets against his pale skin. The gold of her hair under her blue hat. The serpentine waves of his dark locks. The way her lips part for him to feed her a morsel of asiago. The clench of his jaw when Hannibal looks too long. How her fingers bend delicately as she helps Hannibal tend to Will's wounds. How he holds in the urge to gasp in pain. The line of her body beneath the bathwater, the puff of water-lightened curls between her thighs. The awkward splay of his exhausted limbs. Hannibal collects the remembrance of these things, for he knows he will need the copies later, when the originals have flown away.

\---

Bedelia is kneeling astride Will when Hannibal walks in. Hannibal's first instinct is to protect, thinks she means to choke him, but as he rushes forward he sees the tilt of her hips, Will's hands twisted into the fabric of her dress. Their mouths press together inelegantly. They know he's here - half of this is for him. Will breaks the kiss and looks at Hannibal, and his gaze is an arrow piercing his heart. _You want this,_ it says. _But you cannot have it. Not until you have atoned._

\---

He cooks a wonderful meal for the three of them. He offers to give up his portion. He washes their hair in the bath. He washes their feet. He sketches Abigail into a copy of Gentileschi's _Judith Slaying Holofernes_ , Bedelia by her side, holding the figure of Holofernes - Hannibal himself, in this copy, although he has never been a self-portraitist - as Abigail slices at his neck. Blood sprays forth in a fountain. Will hangs it upon the wall unsmiling. He brings home a scrappy little _spinone_ , the lovely thing's ears drooping with long fur. Will says the city is no place for a dog. And none of it is enough.

\---

"When will it be enough?"

Her eyebrow arches.

"When will what be enough, Hannibal?"

"You know quite well what I mean."

"Because I'm your therapist?"

"Because you're my therapist."

She pauses. Thinks. He wants to sketch the way the corners of her mouth turn down when she thinks.

"I don't think that it will ever be enough. Perhaps someday that very knowledge will be enough for him."

"Is it enough for you?"

"I do not measure such things."

"But you won't have me."

\---

He sees her on _Via dei Calzaiuoli_. Her hair is dark and straight, her face freckled. Her cheeks flush in the brisk air. It doesn't get so cold here, not as cold as it did in Baltimore, but all the same the people of the city bundle up in their beautiful wool coats. Hers is new - he can tell. She's young, walking alone. Probably here on some trip to expand her horizons, become cultured. He takes long steps to catch up to her, smiles. Compliments the scarf wrapped tight around her neck. She shrinks away from him, because of course she has learned never to trust strange men, but he knows he will have her charmed soon enough.

\---

"You will go by the name 'Abigail'."

Her spit hits his cheek in a cold splatter. She works against her bindings.

"My home is very beautiful. You will like it there."

She can tell he is getting desperate. _He_ can tell he is getting desperate.

"My dear boy has always wanted a daughter."

"Go fuck yourself."

Her blood runs warm and pure.

\---

They wash the blood from his hands. I tried, he attempts to say. I tried to mend what has been broken.

I know, Will is saying. The water in the basin is tinted alizarin. Bedelia's fingers trail across the surface.

They do not speak to him for the next week.

\---

The light from the hall shines through the spaces between Will's curls. All Hannibal sees, when he looks at the figure standing in the doorway, is a study in chiaroscuro. There is light, and there is shadow, and then Will closes the door behind him and comes to the bed. He curls into the satin sheets and huffs a breath against Hannibal's shoulder. Hannibal doesn't dare move. Will grunts softly and then breathes slowly until he slips into sleep. Hannibal doesn't sleep that night.

The same thing happens the next three nights. He barely sleeps then either.

\---

Bedelia is fresh from the bath when they climb out of bed. She wears the silk robe he bought her. Her hair hangs damp across her shoulders. And when Hannibal emerges from the doorway of his bedroom, she crosses the room to him and her hands go to the knot at her waist. Will tells him to kneel, and he does.

\---

Her scent surrounds him. He could lie here between her thighs for an eternity, if he deserved such a heaven. His mouth chases after the wetness of her. She tugs lightning-sharp at his hair. Behind him, Will presses rough fingers into him with one hand, scratches at his flesh with the other. He knows his boy won't be satisfied until he has drawn blood. He whines and flutters his tongue against her. She never makes a sound, but her body goes taut and she quakes around his fingers.

\---

He is stretched full with Will. Hannibal's hands are above his head. They are not tied there, but he was told not to move them, and he knows how fragile this moment is. He dares not defy a single command. Bedelia faces Will, Hannibal sheathed within her. He can see her back, her hips snapping brutally down and down and down. He cannot see Will, except for his arms where they wrap around Bedelia, but he can feel him with every press of his cock. He'd not expected the size of it. He doesn't come yet (he isn't allowed it) but he dearly wants to.

\---

He is allowed to, once Will has spilled out inside him and Bedelia is above him, her thighs bracketing his jaw. He still doesn't until he's brought her to the edge once more. When she curses above him, dripping down his chin, he arches and lets himself fall.

\---

The butter-yellow sun peeks in between the curtains. It is the middle of the day, after all. Yet they all lie together on Hannibal's bed, if not asleep (as Hannibal is not) then miming it for the sake of the moment. Will's head is pillowed on Hannibal's chest, Bedelia on his other side, turned away but with Hannibal's arm cradled under her. His hand is losing feeling just a little bit, but he doesn't want to stop touching her. The same goes for the shoulder that bears most of Will's weight. He revels in the discomfort of it, of being stretched in two directions at once, and he drops a kiss into the mess of curls at the top of Will's head.

\---

The next day, Hannibal goes to the locksmith. He gets two copies made of every one of his keys. There will be no hidden chambers in this house.


End file.
